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Carbery converts all six tries as Munster power past Scarlets
By PA
Clinical Munster ensured Scarlets’ poor run against Irish provinces continued as they suffered a ninth consecutive defeat in going down 42-7 in Llanelli.
Scarlets have not won against Irish opposition since beating Connacht 41-36 in March 2021 and they never looked like breaking that unenviable record as Munster ran out convincing bonus-point winners.
Number eight Gavin Coombes scored two tries for Munster with Jack O’Sullivan, Thomas Ahern, Shay McCarthy and Sean O’Brien also going over and Joey Carbery converted all six.
Joe Roberts scored Scarlets’ try which Charlie Titcombe converted.
Dan Jones led out Scarlets on his 150th appearance for the club and his first since tearing a hamstring back in September.
His side had the better of the early exchanges but Munster were first on the scoreboard when Coombes drove over from close range.
The hosts continued to struggle in the scrum by conceding a number of penalties and this gave Munster easy attacking platforms.
The Welsh region were then placed under considerable pressure and eventually their heroic defence caved in when Coombes powered across for his second.
Carbery again converted to give his side a deserved 14-0 interval lead.
Seven minutes after the interval, Scarlets changed their half-backs in an attempt to revive their fortunes and it paid immediate dividends when from a line-out on half-way, Roberts powered through a gap in midfield for an excellent individual try.
For the first time in the game, Scarlets briefly threatened an upset but their opponents soon upped their game. First Mike Haley was forced into touch by a cover tackle from Ioan Nicholas before Conor Murray dummied his way over from a five-metre scrum only to be denied by the TMO for an earlier obstruction.
However, the visitors were not to be denied with replacement O’Sullivan crashing over for his side’s third to put daylight between the teams.
Any hopes of a Scarlets comeback were soon extinguished when Ahern scored their bonus-point try before late tries from O’Brien and McCarthy emphasised their superiority.
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So was I right to infer that you assumed a 1:1 correspondence between points and places?
If so why were you so evasive about admitting that?
I don't have much of an opinion about how it should be done. It isn't my preferred system as I think there should be a significant number of teams who qualify directly as a result of their performance in the previous year's CC. But I think 6/5/5 or 6/6/4 would probably make the most sense as splits if they ever did go over to the UEFA model.
Go to commentsStopping the drop off out of high school has to be of highest priority - there is a lot of rugby played at high school level, but the pathways once they leave are not there. Provincial unions need support here from Rugby Canada to prop up that space.
Concussion is also an issue that has seen sports like ultimate frisbee gain ground. All competitions and clubs should integrate touch rugby teams into their pathways. Whenever clubs play XVs games, they should also be taking 20mins to play a competitive touch rugby game too.
Then take rugby branding and move it away from the fringe game that only crazy people play and make it an exercise-first sport that caters to everyone including people who don't want contact.
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